How radical of them.
Ridicilous. It is not even a contest. The US is a criminal world empire. Iran on the other hand is just a normal state, but on a plus side even has an anti-imperial regime.
Well, I like my women not being forced to wear head to toe covering (in fact the less covering the better). I like my drinking and dancing. Shit I could go on forever but lets just say in general I like the pathetic few freedoms I have left and wouldn’t want to be in the even sorrier shape the poor Iranian people are in. I despise my government and the very concept of the State but I don’t see how it can possibly be argued that the Iranian State allows for more individual freedom than the US one does. That is delusional. The US is a criminal world empire, no argument from me. Yes, the US has committed far more crimes against the rest of the world than most states but that is positional, rather than by virtue. The Iranian statists would be perfectly happy to replace us in that regard.
Anti-imperial regime? You must be kidding. They (rightly) oppose US imperialism but, like any other statists, would very much like to replace it with their own brand of imperialism. That is the nature of the state my friend. Don’t get it twisted their statists are no better or worse than ours. Why would you play cheerleader for any statists? Personally I’m an ancap so I oppose them all but maybe we differ there.
Which laws has the US broken that make it a criminal empire and what court has the authority to declare the US criminal?
“Which laws has the US broken that make it a criminal empire and what court has the authority to declare the US criminal?”
lol, are you kidding? Ever heard of “anarchy among nations”?
Which laws has the US broken that make it a criminal empire and what court has the authority to declare the US criminal?
The empire has commited murder, theft and forced people into slavery (to name a few of the empire’s many crimes).
The US Government has (repeatedly) broken the natural laws of humanity and thus should be liquidated.
My next guess is war. Perhaps just before the elections? Obama is getting desperate.
I also forgot - we invaded iraq claiming that saddam might have WMD’s. But a lot of people think that if he really did have them, we wouldn’t have invaded in the first place. Press the red button, hundrds of thousands dead. Publicity nightmare. Infrastructure destroyed. etc.
It sends a giant message to all other would-be enemies of the united states to acquire nukes as soon as possible. We won’t invade if they have WMD’s. We’re accusing Iran of all the same stuff we accuse Iraq and Afghanistan of. I think we’d have gone in by now if they didn’t have nuclear capabilities. (They at least have nuclear power plants… activate self destruct sequence - you have five minutes to evacuate the building mr bond)
Blah, blah, blah. How many people did the USA kill today? How many did Iran? Iranians have the freedom not to see their taxes go towards killing people in other countries. That is the number one freedom to have. If you don’t have that you don’t have nothing. “Poor Iranian people”? Stop with the condescension and sweep before your own doorstep.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda… Facts are facts. US is the Empire and Iran is one of very few countries in the world free of the Empire. 0 and 1. No woulda, coulda, shoulda. Also what is “their brand of imperialism” specifically, do tell?
Funny, you weren’t such a fundamentalist a moment ago when you were expressing a preference for the US “in Bloom’s defense”. So this only works when convenient, eh?
Just about every international law you can name. ICJ in Hague.
Anything else?
Bloomj31, has there ever been a US war or a build up towards one that you opposed? You seem to talk quite a bit for “doing something” but nothing ever about not doing anything.
bloomj, compare China and Vietnam to Cuba and North Korea. All four are “communist” countries. The latter two have suffered from extensive embargoes imposed by the US. The former two have traded with the US. The latter two are backwards, unfree countries. The former two are becoming freer and more prosperous.
krazy kaju: “The former two are becoming freer and more prosperous.”
Really? In what way?
Hello World War 3. We’re fucked
Wow. Cable news is apparently more effective than Vallium at sedating critical thought.
Clayton -
I don’t watch TV actually.
ICJ has no teeth.
No, but I’ve only been around for Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m only 23. I guess I was around for the Gulf War but I was a little kid.
Do not confuse vices and liberty. Vices are used by TPTB as an opiate of the masses (literally, in the case of British colonial rule in China). Furthermore, you need never worry that TPTB will cut off the vices which are popular in a particular region. They might play carrot and stick with them. The populace might have to fight for access to vices they have not traditionally enjoyed out in the open (porn in China or pot in California, etc.) but the biggest mistake a government can make is to ban outright a popular vice. The people of the United States repealed a Constitutional amendment - that takes super-majorities upon super-majorities! - to get their liquor back and through the duration of Prohibition, it is not clear that business actually significantly slowed. Product quality went to shit and prices went to the stratosphere but business was booming - cops and Bible-thumping prohibitionists be damned.
Vice is a cheap substitute for liberty. While prohibition is every bit as repulsive as any other form of tyranny, I think it is a mistake for liberals to be appeased by concessions to vice which do have a corrupting influence. Whole liberty includes both vicious and virtuous action and without the freedom to puruse virtuous action, the freedom only to vicious action does, in fact, corrupt society. If we are free to choose good or evil, industry or sloth, some people will choose the low path but most people will not. But when our choices are between being free to be hedonistic, slothful and licentious on the one hand or to join the slavery of the political economy on the other hand, society cannot be said to be in any sense free. It is enslaved and corrupted.
Clayton -
Is this supposed to be rhetoric or truth? China is far freer than it was several decades ago, and the people on average are far better off. Can you really compare a country where even the poorest workers can eat meat every day to one in which starvation is not a freak event (the latter is what China also used to be like)?
Or the fact that China’s government doesn’t control every step of the vast majority of its citizens like it used to - in the past it was nearly impossible to get permission to move to another city, now migrant populations in many cities are greater than the original populations?
Or the fact that today China is the number 1 car market in the world?
Or has three times the KFCs as America? (lol)
Absolute political freedom? Of course not, China is still much less free than America in this and many other respects. But freer and more prosperous?